Hospital of St Lawrence, Acton

Hospital of St Lawrence
The Tollemache Almshouses might occupy the site of the hospital
Geography
Location	Acton, England, United Kingdom
History
Founded	1083
Closed	1548
Links
Lists	Hospitals in England

The Hospital of St Lawrence, variously known as St Lawrence's Hospital, the Hospice of St Lawrence and the free Chapel and Hospice of St Lawrence and St James, was a medieval house for lepers outside the town of Nantwich, Cheshire, England. It was located to the west of the town, on what is now Welsh Row, within the parish of Acton. St Lawrence's later became a hospital for the infirm poor. Dissolved in 1548, the hospital's land and property was purchased by the Wright family. One of its buildings was subsequently used for dwellings.

Few records of the Hospital of St Lawrence remain, and its founder and date of foundation are unknown. It was originally a lazar house or house for lepers, who were not permitted to enter the town. The Hospital of St Lawrence was one of two medieval hospitals in or near Nantwich, the other being the Hospital of St Nicholas at the east of the town. Founded in 1083–84 at the end of Hospital Street to provide for the needs of travellers, it gave the modern street its name.

The Hospital of St Lawrence is known to have been situated around ½ mile west of the bridge over the River Weaver, well outside the medieval town of Nantwich and then within the adjacent parish of Acton. It stood on a road leading from the town bridge to Lawrence Well, now Welsh Row.Joseph Partridge, author of the first history of Nantwich published in 1774, associated the hospital with an area then occupied by a malthouse (now demolished) adjacent to the former Wilbraham's Almshouses, and it is traditionally considered to have been located on or near the site of the Tollemache Almshouses. However, little or no direct evidence survives as to its precise location. Partridge also states that a priory once existed close to the hospital; no other evidence for such a foundation now survives.